Bots In Marvel Snap: A Comprehensive Guide

Howdy folks, friendly neighbourhood HowlingMines here! Today, I’m back with a dedicated article and video breakdown for some of our most commonly asked questions here at Marvel Snap Zone – are bots real, how do they work, and how can I tell if I’m playing against one? I’m here to dispel any illusions, and let you know everything we know about Bots in Marvel Snap!

BUT FIRST: A LARGE DISCLAIMER!

I feel a horrible need to make that big and red – Bots are something with a lot of hidden information, and are rarely discussed by the development team: Hense the demand for more information about them. During those limited discussions, the development team has made it very clear that bots will continue to evolve, and they will attempt to make them as “human” as possible going forward, placing countermeasures in place to stop us being so aware or attempting to “game” the bots – as a result, there’s a chance information in this video and article will become out of date quickly regardless of how much research and effort we’ve put in. We will of course, attempt to keep it up to date as more information becomes available.

There are Bots in Marvel Snap?

Simply put, yes.

Okay, but why?

Not simply put, we’re not talking about human beings “botting the game” here to cheat against you – that’s not allowed via terms of service and will result in a ban – we’re talking about bots designed by Second Dinner in order to keep Marvel Snap running smoothly and assist with certain aspects of the gameplay experience.

To begin with, bots are a vital part of the “new player journey” – almost exclusively up until Rank 10, and pretty consistently up until Rank 30/Gold. This is because, quite simply, new players don’t stick around if they’re getting repeatedly beaten, and so crushing bots will often help not only boost their confidence in the game, but also keep them winning long enough to become invested.

However, once you leave the shelter of that experience, Bots don’t suddenly “go away” – in fact, how they work against you evolves quite significantly (We break down the different types of bots later in this article!) – but they’re still very important. Second Dinner really wants to keep the matchmaking queue time at roughly five seconds, and you’ll know from our Matchmaking Guide that several factors are taken into account when pairing you against an opponent. If there is not enough people online that meet those parameters, the game will give you a bot opponent as to not keep you waiting around.

This tends to mean those at exceptionally high ranks play against a lot of bots, and if you’re at a very high rank very early in the season, you’re more likely to as well.

Lastly, bots solve an intrinsic problem of Marvel Snap: Cube Distribution.

If the only way to get cubes is to beat other players for their cubes (and gain a small extra cushion whenever you reach a “rank floor”) – then we’d have a finite amount of cubes, and only a certain amount of people could reach infinite each month. That’s bad.

Bots offer a way to inject more cubes into the system at no cost to any single player, singlehandedly solving this problem. This is the biggest indicator that bots are here to stay – they’re just going to continue to improve and become “more human” over time.

So What Facts Do We Know About Bots?

There’s a load of different types and tiers:

A.I like Agatha Harkness and Ego are designed to play completely randomly, but the average matchmaking bot is not. Files for the latest huge list of bot names for the latest patch (January 31, 2023 version 11.18.1) has been datamined by the team working on the Marvel Snap Tracker and MarvelSnap.pro, filled with Known Bot Names and Bot Types, which we’ll offer more details on throughout the article.

There are 3 major types of names listed:

• “Real Player” – unsurprisingly, this is exactly what it sounds like, this name meets some of the traditional bot naming conventions, but mimics the name of an actual player. Since Marvel Snap allows duplicate names, if a player uses the same name as listed here, you’ll have to discern if they’re a bot some other way.
• “Human” – Hilariously, this is anything but. These are the bots you’ll commonly play against during that Rank 10-30 window. They have names that are composed of one-word first names, or a compound name that contains an adjective (Prefixes) and a noun (Postfixes). These are the “weakest” type of bot, that doesn’t really understand the game, struggles to read the board and locations, cannot see your plays or your hand, and just looks to try and keep initiative, spend all the energy, and stay ahead as much as possible.
• “LSTM” – Stands for long short-term memory, this is the label for the bots that everyone hates, and the ones you’ll often face at higher MMRs. Often called “Cheaty” bots, these are the ones that can see some upcoming plays before they make their own, are believed to be able to see the cards in your hand, and are at least *better* at reading locations. This doesn’t mean they cannot be outwitted or played into. Their names are generated using a special neural network.

They’re Designed To Look As Human As Possible:

Not a popular choice, but Second Dinner doesn’t want you to be able to easily tell if you’re playing a bot in future – so expect constant adjustments and updates.

Locations Are Not Their Strong Suit:

If a player throws their Angela into Murderworld, you’re playing against a bot.

At least, I really hope you are.

This is another factor that is constantly improving though, prominent player Agent Carter has thousands of games into bots since Beta, and has been carefully tracking their behaviours all that time – they’ve made several observations about each individual location here, but it’s important to note that, while definitely worth checking out, none of those observations are in any way confirmed.

Bot Games Effect Your MMR, But Not The Same Way As A Player:

We have to infer that “differently” here means less, but this does confirm that losing to or beating up on bots repeatedly will inform your future matchmaking.

Bot Decks Are Custom Built By The Dev Team, And Are Inspired By Current Player Meta Decks:

The decks played by bots are built by the design team, and you’ll play against different ones based on your Collection Level, MMR and progression – this includes the rarity of the bots cards too! Back in September, these decks were updated to reflect popular meta decks of players at the time, and Second Dinner intends to continue to do similar updates as metagames evolve.

So How Do I Recognise A Bot In Game?

For now, Bots appear to use a selection of the Default Avatars given to all players at the beginning of Marvel Snap – including popular choices such as Misty Knight, Agent 13, Medusa and Cyclops. There has been some reports of bots also using unreleased avatars too, but this is being investigated by Second Dinner and should not be the case.

As mentioned above, “Human” bots that you’ll mostly bump into in lower ranks tend to follow two naming conventions: one-word first names, or a compound name that contains an adjective and a noun.

Bots never used to emote – but between starting research on this article and completing it, I’ve now been informed they do! Bots seem to be evolving fast, and I wouldn’t want to look to the fact that a player doesn’t emote back as a sign of a bot anymore.

Look at their variants! Currently, bots can obtain infinity splits that we as players cannot: So if you find yourself staring across the board from a rare background, such as gold or ink, but it doesn’t have a particle effect – or perhaps a rare particle effect, such as the Kirby Crackle, but no foil backgroud: Congrats! You’ve hooked yourself a bot!

Bots may also use a variety of Card Backs at their disposal, such as ones from previous Season Passes.

Lastly, many bots are prone to snapping to increase the stakes if they’re incredibly ahead on two locations: Importantly, when they do – it’s always at the VERY START of the turn, like IMMEDIATELY – so if your opponent took their time to think, or snapped at the very end, you’re likely not against a bot.

Okay, Is There Outside-Of-Game Ways I Can Be More Certain?

Sure, if you’re willing to do a bit of the hard work.

• You can find evidence in the game log files after a game. This can be found (on Android) in /android/data/com.nvsgames.snap/files/standalone/states/nvprod – sadly, I do not have the PC or Apple location to hand, but I’ll update this when I do, and I image it’s quite similar – at the end of each game, your opponent will have their entire decklist, the deck name, and the card that boosters were assigned to printed into a human-readable .json file, which is overwritten each and every match. If you go looking, and you played against a bot, their deck name should just be “Deck” – and no card will have been assigned boosters.
• If you, ya know, don’t wanna go digging in game files – there is another way we mentioned above: You can check it against the lovely list of bot names and types provided to me by Kirallas. Simply check the name of your opponent, and you’ll have yourself an answer. Keep in mind this list still isn’t definitive though, as it is for an older patch and more players join the game every day!

Closing Thoughts

Well, this video and article were quite something to try and make! There’s a lot of secrecy surrounding bots, and a lot we still don’t know – and a lot of what we do still know might not even be real anymore!

I hope this guide has been able to help you out in identifying bots, and has helped provide some resources in playing against them. We’ll look to keep this as up to date as we possibly can.

If you liked this article, be sure to let us know! Content like this is a lot of work, and so it’d be great to hear if it’s worthwhile making or not.

If you’d like to discuss any of this further, provide something I missed, or just let me know what you think about it all – Please feel free to contact us on Twitter @MarvelSnapZone or over in our dedicated community Discord server! Alternatively, you can drop me a line personally over on Twitter at @HowlingMines if you’d like a chat with just me.

Until next time.
I’ve been HowlingMines, You’ve Been Amazing.
See you out there in the multiverse!